Facebook Makes It Harder to Hide

The social network said Thursday that it would begin dismantling a feature that lets users block their Facebook profiles from appearing on searches. Users who have enabled the feature, called “Who can look up your timeline by name?” will see reminders over the coming weeks.

Facebook declined to specify exactly how many users currently have the featured enabled, but said it is less than 10%. (Even 1% of Facebook users would be more than 10 million people.) Users have said they use the setting to avoid feeling pressured to accept friend requests from people they don’t want to friend.

In a post on the company’s website, Richter said that members should control who can see the information they post, rather than who can see their name. “Whether you’ve been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share,” he wrote.

The shift follows other Facebook moves that make it easier for people to find one another. In its recently announced Graph Search tool, users can search for people without knowing their names, for example, “People who live in Seattle.”